I'm using a 17" widescreen display and whenever I play 16:9 aspect ratio DVDs (reg 1) using DVD Player, the black bars still appear on the top and bottom of the display. Is there a way to remove these black bars and have the movie span the entire display?
The aspect ratios of movies varies from video to video. Some may have the exact 16:9 ratio of HDTV while others have the aspect ratio of 1.37:1, 1.85:1 or 2.39:1. Forcing material of a different aspect ratio to 16:9 will lead to a distorted image. So long as you dont get black bars at the left or right side of the screen and the actors dont look to tall or too wide then you're seeing it as the moviemakers wanted it to be. I think the 17" widescreen displays are of the 16:10 ratio & not 16:9. Learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)
Ok. Maybe that's why some widescreen movies occupy more screen space than others. The Star Wars DVDs are very wide and the black bars occupy a LOT of space. Are there any other Mac DVD apps out there like PowerDVD (PC) that stretches widescreen movies to span the entire screen?
VLC can do what you want but you'll be cropping the left & ride side of the picture or you'll have distorted image making actors look like string beans. Artoo would look like a ICBM instead of a rolling trashcan.